1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for rating the success of online advertising campaigns as well as predicting the success of online advertising campaigns and pricing campaigns based on the predictions. It also relates to systems and methods for characterizing viewer behavior and determining to what degree a specific viewer's behavior places them in a specific category with respect to their behavior, thus becoming a polarized viewer. The invention also relates to systems and methods for characterizing websites with respect to polarized characteristics.
2. Prior Art
According to www.wikipedia.org®, Gross Rating Point (GRP) is a term used in advertising to measure the size of an audience reached by a specific media vehicle or schedule. It is the product of the percentage of the target audience reached by an advertisement, times the frequency they see it in a given campaign (frequency×% reached). For example, a television advertisement that is aired 5 times reaching 50% of the target audience each time it is aired would have a GRP of 250 (5×50%). To achieve a common denominator and compare media, reach×frequency are expressed over time (divided by time) to determine the ‘weight’ of a media campaign. GRPs are used predominantly as a measure of media with high potential exposures or impressions, like outdoor, broadcast, or online (Internet).
GRP values are commonly used by media buyers to compare the advertising strength of various media vehicles, including in recent years, online advertising on the Internet. All GRP calculations to date are historical, being compiled after a campaign completes. Video ads typically contain a pixel pattern called a “tracking pixel” supported by, for instance, Nielsen®. For example, if a user logs onto Facebook® (a Nielsen media partner) and then visits another website where an ad that Nielsen is tracking is shown, Nielsen will put a pixel in the ad that will prompt Facebook to send Nielsen the age and gender of the people who viewed the ad. Nielsen can then match the IP address of the pixel to see if the person is also on a Nielsen panel. If so, the information from the third-party partner can be combined with the panel demographics. This mechanism enables Nielsen to report on the GRPs delivered on a specific online ad campaign after the campaign has completed.
In the RTB (Real-Time Bidding) environment for electronic media impression auctions, an electronic advertising agency/consolidator operating a demand-side platform receives billions of daily auction opportunities for electronic media impressions from partners like Google®, Yahoo®, etc. These partners operate auctions for ad impressions and then place electronic ads based on auction results. A partner's auction is considered an external auction with respect to a demand-side platform where an internal auction may also be operated to determine which advertisements, also referred to herein as ads, and bids are submitted to the external auction. Each ad impression opportunity includes information parameters about the ad impression—for example, the target website, geolocation of the user, ad size, user cookie, etc, that are used for targeting purposes. The demand side platform then processes hundreds of ads in their system, supplied by advertiser clients along with desired filtering/targeting parameters, against information parameters supplied by the partner, and filters out any ads that do not qualify (for example the ad does not want to target youtube.com®). For ads that are not removed due to a mismatch with targeting parameters, the demand-side platform then evaluates the corresponding bids that represent how much each client advertiser is willing to pay. The winning bid in the internal auction is then sent to the external auction to compete for the impression opportunity.
An electronic advertising agency/consolidator operating a demand-side platform typically charges their advertiser/clients based on impressions after the fact. They have not previously been known to guarantee the reach of a campaign ahead of time—and do so at a guaranteed price.
Note that in some scenarios, the electronic advertising agency/consolidator operating a demand-side platform and the advertiser/client may in fact be the same entity—for instance when they comprise a large organization with an internal advertising department capable of acting as a demand-side platform. Also, in such an instance, there may be no internal auction—just a submission to an external auction.